Shin Megami Tensei (Series)

The Shin Megami Tensei series (真・女神転生, Shin Megami Tensei)? is the largest of the branches in the Megami Tensei franchise. It started with Shin Megami Tensei and maintains many of the traditional aspects of the original Megami Tensei. The "shin" (真) in the title translates to "true", but another Japanese character also called "shin" (新) means "new", and is a play on words in Japanese. Notably, Atlus USA attached the title of Shin Megami Tensei to all Megami Tensei franchise games they have released after the release of Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, regardless of which series they originally belonged to, to help market the Megami Tensei franchise in the west.[1][2]

While the Shin Megami Tensei moniker has been used for multiple games outside the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series, the moniker was dropped from Persona 4 Golden and the Persona 4 Arena duology as it would have made the titles unwieldy.[2]

According to Atlus, the series title is translated as "True Goddess Metempsychosis": Metempsychosis refers to the series' trademark theme of reincarnation.[3]